Core Value Workbook

Build Solid Core Value & Change the World around You

STEVEN STOSNY. PH.D.

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Preface

Core Value has been the central concept of my work since I began my career in the 1980s. It has
formed the foundation of programs to:

End chronic resentment and abuse

• Love without Hurt Boot Camps

• Living & Loving after Betrayal
• Treating Attachment Abuse.

Relationship enhancement

• How to Improve Your Marriage without Talking about It: Finding Love beyond Words
• Empowered Love
• Compassionate Parenting

Personal development

• Soar Above
• Heal, Grow, Empower
• The Powerful Self

It’s the cornerstone of our emotion regulation regimens for:

• Anger
• Anxiety
• Overeating
• Alcohol and drug abuse.

Deficits in core value contribute to all emotional and behavioral problems. Moreover, it’s
impossible to recover from any kind of pain, suffering, or behavioral problem, let alone achieve
any kind of happiness, without enhancing core value.

Steven Stosny
September, 2019
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1. Get in Touch with Core Value

There is a uniquely human drive to create value, to regard persons, groups, ideas and objects as
worthy of interest, appreciation, time, energy, effort, and, if necessary, sacrifice. The creation
and experience of value gives life meaning and purpose.

I call the ability to create and experience value, core value. When in touch with core value, life is
vibrant and enriched. When not in touch with it, life is filled with pain, exhaustion, or boredom.

To value is to regard someone or something as important and worthy of appreciation, time,

energy, and, if necessary, sacrifice.

The experience of value provides a heightened sense of well-being and vitality. You feel more
alive looking at a beautiful sunset, feeling connected to a loved one, feeling genuine compassion
for another person, having a spiritual experience, appreciating something creative, or feeling
committed to a cause.

Creating value increases the capacity to learn, appreciate, grow, and improve.

The more value we create, the more meaningful life becomes. When true to the deepest values
we create, we feel authentic. We feel guilt and shame when we violate them. Life seems
meaninglessness when we lose touch with them.

We never lose the ability to create value, but we often lose touch with it, especially when we’re
hurt, bored, or distracted.

The first step in getting in touch with core value is to decide:

What is the most important thing about me as a person?

This is a difficult question to answer, in part because there are a lot of important things about
you. For example, most people initially reply to the question with something like, “I’m honest,
loyal, a hard worker,” and so on. These are important qualities, to be sure, but they tend to be of
equal value, and core value is more important than anything else.

There are various methods of deciding the most important thing about you, but this may be the
quickest way. Imagine that you have grown children. How would you want them to feel about
you?
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Choice A: "Mom and Dad were honest, loyal and hard-working (fill-in whatever initially seems
to be the most important thing about you). I'm not sure they really cared about us, but they were
always honest and hard-working, etc."

Choice B: "Mom and Dad were human and made mistakes, but they always cared about us and
wanted what was best for us."

For most folks, love, compassion, and kindness for the people they love is the most important
thing about them. We know from research that the profoundest regret near the end of life is not
having been more loving, compassionate, and kind to loved ones.

If someone close to you has died, you got a glimpse of that kind of regret. Grievers naturally
wonder, even when their relationships to lost loved ones were close,

“Did they know how much I loved them? Did I let them know how important they were to me?
Did I do enough to help?"

On your death bed you won't fret about whether your spouse and children thought you were
right. You'll desperately hope that they knew how much you cared about them.

Describe the most important thing about you as a person (your deepest value)
(How you want those you love to remember you; what you'll regret not doing enough of)

The rewards for staying true to your deepest values are great: Authenticity, conviction, long-term
well-being.

And the reminders for violating them are terrible: guilt, shame, anxiety, regret, feeling
inadequate, or unlovable. Unfortunately, these vulnerable feelings are almost always defended
with resentment and anger.

Here is the first (of many) routes to core value:

When resentful, angry, anxious, depressed, or obsessing, make sure you're being true to the most
important thing about you as a person.

The Secret of Happiness: Value More than You Devalue

If you devalue more than you value, your life will seem bad and sometimes unreal, even if a lot
of good things happen to you.
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If you value more than you devalue, your life will seem good and authentic, even if a lot of bad
things happen.

At the end of the day, the only reliable method of sustaining a sense of authenticity is through the
creation of value and consistent fidelity to the deepest values you create.

Creating Value

High value creation gives meaning, purpose, and vitality to life, with a greater motivation to
improve, create, build, appreciate, connect, or protect.

As value investment declines, so does meaning, purpose, vitality, and motivation. We begin to
function more on autopilot. We go through the motions of living, with less interest and positive
energy.

If value investment declines too far, we begin to feel numb or depressed.

If it declines drastically, we lose the will to live.

Levels of Value Creation

High Moderate Low Undeveloped

Meaning, purpose Blunted meaning, purpose Diffuse meaning Losing the point of
living or the will to
Vitality Declining vitality Little purpose live

High motivation More autopilot Numbness

functioning than
purposeful motivation Use of low-grade
anger for energy

Going through
the motions of
life

Below are the major areas of value-creation. (Anthropological evidence suggests that these have
been significant to humans since our earliest time on the planet.) Tapping into any one of them
stimulates core value and relieves guilt, shame, emotional numbness, even meaninglessness.

• Basic humanity
• Attachment (love)
• Spirituality
• Appreciation of natural and creative beauty
• Sense of community
• Compassionate acts
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Basic Humanity

Basic humanity is an innate capacity for interest in the well-being of others. In its more
developed expressions, it motivates respectful, helpful, nurturing, protective, and altruistic
behaviors. In extreme adversity, it motivates sacrifice and rescue.

Basic humanity allows us to grow beyond the confines of personal experience and prejudice to
recognize the inherent value of other people. The more in touch with basic humanity, the more
humane we feel. When out of touch with it, we feel less humane.

Growth in basic humanity doesn't mean becoming Mother Theresa, nor does it necessarily mean
giving to charity or doing volunteer work. There are degrees of basic humanity, and most people
can do quite well by regularly exercising only a moderate level.

Levels of Basic Humanity

High Moderate Low Undeveloped

Universal Feeling equal to all, Feeling superior or Sense of isolation
fellowship – superior to none inferior
we’re connected

Drive to enhance Respectful of More manipulative Contemptuous

and protect the everyone than helpful
welfare of others

Sacrifice for the Generally helpful Resentful Vengeful

greater good
Act according to Vindictive Willingness to harm
one's deepest
values, rather than
reacting in kind to
bad behavior of
others

Moving to a higher state of basic humanity:

• Accept that humane behaviors are their own rewards, rather than investments for
expected returns from others.

We must replace:

"I'll be respectful to you so you'll do something for me."

With:
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"I'll be respectful to you because it's the right thing to do. That will make it more likely
that you'll be respectful to someone else, who then may be respectful to yet another
person."

• Know that everyone has a sense of basic humanity. Even the person acting like a
complete jerk right now would probably rescue a child in danger.

The harder it is to recognize the basic humanity of another person, the greater the reward in
doing so.

• Realize that you raise self-value by valuing others and lower it by devaluing others.

• Recognize that most people are more frail than cruel.

• Respect each and every person.

• Do some small thing every day to make the world a little better.

Weekly log (record the number of times you did each of the following).

Recognized Accepted Valued Respected Made the world a little

humanity of human others others better through
others frailty attitudes & behavior

If you do the above consistently for one week, you should experience longer lasting states of
well-being.
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Attachment (love)

The formation of affectionate bonds (attachment) is the first value we create. Everything we
learn to value in life rises from that initial drive to create value.

Levels of Attachment

High Low Undeveloped

Caring, nurturing, supportive, Resentful, manipulative, Disengaged, isolated
encouraging conflictive, contemptuous,
abusive

Moving to a higher state of attachment:

• Be the partner, parent, or adult child you deeply want to be.

• Be loving, compassionate, and supportive to the people you love.
• Help them grow and develop to their fullest potential.
• Show loyalty, helpfulness, creativity, optimism.

Weekly log (record the number of times you did each of the following).

Acted as the Was loving, Helped loved one Was loyal, helpful,
partner, parent, compassionate, and achieve their fullest and optimistic
adult child I most supportive to the potential
want to be people I love
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If you do the above consistently for one week, you should experience longer lasting states of
well-being than you can possibly achieve with focus on "getting your needs met."

Spirituality

Spirituality is a sense of connection to something larger than the self, which can be God, nature,
the cosmos, a social or moral cause, or the sea of humanity.

The importance of spiritual connection predates recorded history. Even the Neanderthals - those
more primitive "cave men" who were not our predominant ancestors - buried their dead in what
appear to have been spiritual ceremonies.

Levels of Spirituality

High Moderate Low Undeveloped

Strong, consistent Occasional sense of Little sense of No sense of

sense of connection connection to something connection to connection to
to something greater greater than the self something something
than the self greater than the greater than the
self self

Moving to a higher state of spirituality:

Whatever spiritual connection you have, do more of it. For example, go to a place of worship,
pray, see God in everything and everyone, meditate, express your soul in a way that makes
personal sense for you. You can also identify with a social, political, or moral cause.

Remember, spirituality is a value that you create. There is no limit to how much of it you can
create.

Weekly log (record the number of times you did each of the following).

Expressed my soul Felt connection with something larger than

the self
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If you do the above consistently for one week, you should experience longer lasting states of
well-being.

Nature

The human ability to appreciate and be moved by the beauty of nature is a key element in overall
well-being. Research shows that spending an hour a week in nature can be as effective as anti-
depressant drugs.

We can admire nature and feel a part of it at the same time.

Levels of Connection to Nature

High Moderate Low None

Strong connection to Mood sometimes Hardly ever notice Seemingly

nature with frequent lifted through natural beauty separate from the
desire to experience its appreciation of natural world
beauty nature

Moving to a higher state of attunement with nature:

• Observe a sunset, trees, flowers, etc.

• Go to the country, the ocean, a lake, woods, etc.
• There is something beautiful in nature nearby you at all times.

Weekly log (record the number of times you did each of the following).

Went out of my way to observe natural Regarded natural beauty as a core value
beauty
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If you do the above consistently for one week, you should experience longer lasting states of
well-being.

Creativity

The appreciation of creativity in the form of art, literature, architecture, music, dance, furniture,
jewelry, or anything created by another person expands the human spirit.

Levels of Creativity

High Moderate Low Undeveloped

Regular consumer or Arts and crafts Arts and crafts Insensitive to arts and
creator of arts, appreciated, if they can unimportant crafts
literature, music, be fit into schedule
crafts

Enhancing Creativity

• Indulge in creative appreciation or expression whenever you can.

• Go to concerts, galleries, architectural tours, etc.
• Read books, listen to music, watch movies, plays – do more of whatever moves you.

Weekly log (record the number of times you did each of the following).

Expressed my creativity Went out of my way to Read, listened to music,

appreciate creativity watched movies, etc.
(concerts, galleries, looked
at beautiful objects, etc.)
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If you do the above consistently for one week, you should experience longer lasting states of
well-being.

Community

Feeling connected to a group of people or identifying with them, based on shared values, goals,
or experiences, activates our innate sense of community.

The human brain developed to its present form when we needed to live in tightly-knit
communities to survive.

The importance of community is seen in the high degree of contagion of emotions, a powerful
force underlying social structure.

The social transmission and reception of emotions keeps us in small, dynamic communities,
whether or not we’re aware of them. We create more value and meaning when we make
ourselves aware of them.

Levels of Community Connection

High Moderate Low Undeveloped

Strong group Occasional group identity Little group identity Isolation

identity based on
values, goals, or
experiences

Enhancing Sense of Community

• Join a worship, school, parents', professional, or work-related group.

• Focus on similarities (rather than differences) with various groups of people.

Weekly log (record the number of times you did each of the following).

Participated in community group or Focused on similarities with various

activities groups of people
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If you do the above consistently for one week, you should experience longer lasting states of
well-being.

Compassionate Acts

Compassion literally means “to suffer with.” It’s sympathy with the pain, discomfort, or hardship
of another, with motivation to help.

The definition of a compassionate act is something that helps relieve the suffering, hardship, or
discomfort of another person, with no material gain to you; you do not do it to get something in
return. Compassionate acts are the lubricant of social bonds and the lifeblood of intimate
relationships.

Psychologically speaking, there is more reward is small but frequent compassionate behaviors
than in doing a few large ones - anything that fits into a routine is more likely to produce lasting
change with the greatest benefit in the long run. (Giving a dollar whenever you can to charity
carries more accumulative psychological reward than giving a lump sum at Christmas time.)
There is no act of compassion too small to invoke a state of core value.

Note: Basic humanity and compassionate acts have quite a bit of overlap. Compassionate acts
differ slightly in that they go beyond basic humanity to include those who have lost touch with
their humanity. (We can be compassionate to serial murderers.) They can also extend to pets and
other animals.

Levels of Compassionate Acts

High Moderate Low Undeveloped

Compassion is a Helps others when Ignores distress of Self-obsessed,

transcendent distress is witnessed others when insensitive to distress
emotion, personal possible of others
enhancement occurs
when helping others

Enhancing compassionate acts:

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• Visit the sick.

• Help someone in need.
• Listen to someone.
• Just being nice to someone restores hope and raises your core value.

Weekly log (record the number of times you did each of the following).

Helped Listened to Tried to be Other (describe)

someone someone who thoughtful
needed a listener & kind

If you do the above consistently for one week, you should experience longer lasting states of
well-being.

The Path through the Major Barrier to Core Value

A great barrier to reaching core value is pain. It’s simply hard to create value and meaning when
we feel hurt. But there’s an even greater barrier to core value than feeling hurt. Most of us have
developed habits of avoiding immediate hurt and discomfort by violating deeper values.

The path through the barrier to core value is self-compassion.

Self-compassion is a sympathetic response to your hurt, distress, or vulnerability, with a

motivation to heal, repair, and improve. It brings a sense of empowerment - a feeling that you
can do something to make your life better, even if you are not sure what that might be at the
moment. It tends to keep you focused on solutions in the present and future.

Self-compassion is implicit in compassionate acts. It makes us recognize that to sympathize with

the hurt of others heals our own.
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It’s important to note that self-compassion differs greatly from self-criticism and self-pity. Self-
criticism is blaming yourself for your hurt, distress, or vulnerability, usually with a measure of
punishment or contempt. It’s based on the mistaken idea that if you punish yourself enough you
won’t make similar mistakes in the future. Just the opposite is true – self-punishment leads to
more mistakes. Who is more likely to make more mistakes, the valued self or the devalued self?

Self-pity is focus on your pain or perceived damage with no motivation to heal, repair, or
improve. It has an element of contempt for your perceived incompetence or inadequacy because
it assumes that you can’t do anything to make your life better. Needless to say, self-criticism and
self-pity turn pain into suffering.

Only compassion for yourself, with motivation to heal, improve, and experience compassion for
others, will build core value.

Defenses:
Withdrawal,
resentment,
anger

Core hurts

Self-
compassion

CORE VALUE
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2. Building Core Value

We build core value simply by valuing more. At times when it’s hard to do that, we must
steadfastly believe the following.

I know I’m valuable because I:

• Have a sense of basic humanity – feel more humane recognizing the humanity of others
• Have a sense of meaning and purpose – know the most important things to and about me
• Have some sense of spirituality
• Can feel a connection with or an ability to appreciate nature
• Have a sense of community
• Can perform small acts of compassion and kindness.

Improve, Appreciate, Connect, Protect

A powerful way to build core value is to develop habits of coping with stress by trying to
improve, appreciate, connect, or protect. These four motivations change most feelings for the
better. If you follow one – improve, appreciate, connect, or protect – you’ll feel better. If you do
two, you’ll feel even better. If you do the first three (e. g. “kiss and makeup”), you’ll feel
euphoria. And if you do all four, you’ll feel joy.

Motivation Result

Improve, appreciate, connect, or protect Feel better

Improve and appreciate Feel much better

Improve and connect Feel much better

Improve and protect Feel much better

Appreciate and connect Feel much better

Appreciate and protect Feel much better

Connect and protect Feel much better

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Improve, appreciate, and connect Euphoria

Improve, appreciate, connect, and protect Joy

Improve

We function at our best when seeking to improve something. Just thinking about how to improve
your situation or your experience engages large numbers of neurons in the prefrontal cortex, and
activates the positive – and usually productive – emotion of interest. The more interest we can
summon, the more likely we are to improve. That’s why we do so much better when interested in
tasks than when we’re bored with them.

Probably the greatest barrier to improving is the inability to “fix” something or make it 100%
better. It’s more productive to think of improving as an incremental process - making things a
little better in each of several steps. In emotionally charged conditions, it’s nearly impossible to
go directly from feeling bad to 100% improvement. (It takes about 20 minutes for the most
potent effects of cortisol to wear off.) But once you make something 10% better, it becomes
easier to make it 20% better. Then it’s easier to make it 40% better, and so on.

Strive to make a bad situation a little better if you can, but if you can’t, then make your
experience of it better.

For example, a common problem after divorce is the hard feelings of valued former in-laws. In
this case, you would start out thinking of what might make the situation with, say, your ex
mother-in-law 10% better might be sending her a sincerely written card or a flower would serve
as an olive branch. If that – or anything else you try – doesn’t improve the situation, change the
way you experience it. In place of the self-denigrating interpretation that she’s rejecting you, see
her as a hurt woman trying unsuccessfully to deal with her own pain. That doesn’t excuse her
behavior, but it improves your experience of it.

Below are the major types of improve motivations:

• Situational: Try to make the situation you’re in more beneficial, productive, or

convenient.
• Experiential: Try to make your experience more comfortable, pleasant, or pleasurable
• Transcendent: If your experience remains negative, try to make your situation and/or
experience less meaningful to you.

To see the power of your brain’s improve mode, try the following: Note your current emotional
state. Count to five, then read aloud the following improve behaviors:

• Learn
• Grow
• Enhance
• Expand
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• Analyze
• Build
• Repair
• Renew
• Redeem.

After reading the above list aloud, note your emotional state for a second time. You should find a
slight elevation, just from saying the words. Imagine the effect of enacting the behaviors.

Briefly describe something that makes you resentful, anxious, or depressed.

This is what I can do to make my experience of the event five percent better:

Appreciate

We typically think of appreciation in terms of complimentary expressions like, “You’re

wonderful, special, awesome, smart, attractive, etc.” Though they’re sometimes nice to hear,
expressions like these often feel hollow. That’s because appreciation is primarily a felt condition,
not a verbal one.

Missing in most compliments is the essential component of appreciation – opening your heart,
allowing yourself to be enhanced by certain qualities of other people or things.

For example, when I appreciate how loving you are, your fine work, or your thoughtful gestures,
I am enhanced. I become a better person as I appreciate you. (This is why appreciating and being
appreciated are so appealing in relationships: both parties become better people.) What’s more,
my appreciation of you has expansive benefit, helping me to appreciate the beauty of the sunset,
the drama of the painting, or the excitement of the movie or play.

The act of appreciating helps us:

• Regulate negative moods

• Break the stronghold of autopilot functioning
• Give life dimension, dynamics, and color
• Maintain a sense of meaning and purpose
• Be happier
• Sustain intimate connection.
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Briefly describe something that makes you resentful, anxious, or depressed.

List two things to appreciate about your best friend.

List two things to appreciate about your parents.

List two things to appreciate about each of your children.

List two things to appreciate about your significant other.

Protect

The creation of value carries a simultaneous instinct to protect the person or object of value.

If you own valuable objects, you probably have some kind of security system in your house.

If you love someone, you have an unconscious and automatic instinct to protect that person. The
instinct to protect motivates a wide range of behaviors from the routine to heroic. It will lead you
to get reliable car seats for your children, make sure they eat nutritiously, sleep well, and do their
homework. It will also move you to risk your life to rescue them from danger.

Protection is so important in modern times that genuine self-value (as opposed to narcissistic
delusion) rises and falls on the ability to protect loved ones. We feel more valuable when we
protect them and less valuable when we fail to protect them. Imagine the emotional fate of a
world-class CEO who lets go of his child’s hand in traffic to watch in horror as she runs to her
death. On the other hand, if you feel that you can protect your family’s well-being, your self-
value will be high, even if you fail in other areas of life.

To a large extent, the protective instinct attenuates misfortune. Research shows that getting fired
from a job is easier on those more attuned to the protection of their families than their own ego.
Protective people tend to search immediately for another job as a means of putting food on the
table, while the ego-driven are likely to endure a few weeks of painful depression and drinking.
It takes longer for them to recover because they misunderstand their pain, which is not telling
them they are failures; it’s telling them to protect their families. The pain will continue until they
heed its message and resume protection of their families, emotionally if not financially.

At the end of the day, suppression of the instinct to protect diminishes the ability to love. Many
people who feel like failures at protecting the well-being of their families are susceptible to
sexual affairs, drug abuse, and a myriad of compulsive behaviors that ruin relationships.
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Describe something you do not like about the closest person to you. (Example - I do not
like the criticism and complaints that I sometimes hear from my significant other. Note: Don’t
include abusive behaviors. Those are non-negotiable and must stop immediately.)

If he/she felt protected by you, would that help change the things you don’t like? (In the
example above, the criticism and complaints are a clear indication that she doesn’t feel
protected. If she felt protected, she wouldn’t criticize or complain as much.)

If you felt a sense of protection for him or her, would that help you tolerate the things you
don’t like? (In the example above, taken from my own marriage, the answer is most certainly
yes. I would try to protect her from the anxiety or fear that causes her criticism and complaints
and be far more tolerant of them when they do emerge.)

Connect

Connection is a sense that some part of your emotional world is also part of someone else’s. It’s
a transcendent state, in that it makes us rise above purely selfish and petty concerns to value the
well-being of significant others or communities. On a biological level, connection elevates blood
levels of the bonding hormone, oxytocin, which makes us feel calm, safe, and secure.

Human beings require connection because:

• Our brains are hard-wired for it—we were never a solitary species; we’re the most social
of all mammals, forming the strongest and most enduring emotional bonds.

• We suffer physically and mentally from disconnection.

• We become psychotic without social cues (This happens to prisoners kept in solitary
confinement too long and to some elderly who live alone and isolated.)

Perhaps the most important thing to know about connection is that it’s a mental state and a
choice. You choose to feel connected to certain people or communities and you choose to feel
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disconnected. The choice to feel connected can be independent of relationships, i.e., you can feel
connected unilaterally, as many people do when loved ones are estranged or deceased.

Research evidence suggests that human beings function at their best when investing in three
levels of connection, although the amount of investment in each is rarely equal, i.e., we tend to
major in one, minor in another, and make minimal investment in the third.

The major levels of connection are:

Intimate - good friends, lovers, and family members. These are the most personal of emotional
bonds, with the greatest amount of self-disclosure and commitment to the well-being of others.
To thrive, they require affection, unconditional safety and security for all parties, and relative
freedom from resentment and hostility. They must feature at least some kindness and consistent
compassion when loved ones are in pain, discomfort, or distress.

Collective or Communal - investment in a group, where individual relationships are secondary to

the concerns of the group. Collective connections provide crucial feelings of belonging and
social identity.

Research shows that feeling excluded from communal connections is one of the most enduringly
painful of social conditions.

In the past, communal connections evolved naturally in neighborhoods. The steep decline in
sense of community that has occurred all over the world in recent decades has limited severely
limited collective connection.

On the positive side, collective connection gives us patriotism, faith-based communities, groups
geared to civic causes like Lions, Rotary, and Kiwanis, and youth development organizations
such as the Boy/Girl Scouts and 4-H clubs.

On the negative side, the need for a collective connection has produced Fascism, cults, youth
gangs, and groups dedicated to hatred and terrorism.

Transcendent connection helps us relate to something greater than the self, such as some notion
of God, religion, morality, social causes, nature, the cosmos, or simply the vast sea of humanity.
This sublime level of connection makes us aware that, even though we metaphorically stand on a
lone rock looking up at the overwhelming infinity of a starry night, we are connected, in some
mysterious way, to something greater. (The paradox of human nature is that we feel more
significant when accepting our insignificance.)

Describe something you do not like about the closest person to you.
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If you decided to feel connected to that person, would that help change the things you don’t
like or help you tolerate them?

Strengthening Collective Connections

• Focus on the values, goals, or ideas you share, rather than personal characteristics you
might not like.

• Know that everyone would help and comfort the child in the desert.

• Stopping at a red light is more than personal inconvenience. You are protecting the safety
and well-being of everyone in the intersection and in the community-at-large.

Weekly log (record the number of times you did each of the following).

Focused on shared Recognized the core value Felt a sense of cooperation

values, goals, or of community members for the greater good in
experiences with routine social behaviors
community members

If you do the above consistently for one week, you should experience longer lasting states of
well-being.

Strengthening Transcendent Connections

• See the big picture of the universe and feel that you are part of it.
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• Travel away from the city to observe the vast, starry sky.

• If you are religious, do something to practice that religion.

• Feel the light within you.

Weekly log (record the number of times you did each of the following).

I see the big picture of the universe. I feel the light within me.

If you do the above consistently for one week, you should experience longer lasting states of
well-being.

Intimate

We develop, maintain, and nurture intimate connection through self-acceptance and acceptance
of loved ones. Intimate connection is the one area in life where we can feel accepted for who we
are, without pretense or condition, and where we can accept another person for who he or she is,
without pretense or condition.
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3. A Place Within to Recharge: Your Core Value Bank

The Core Value Bank (CVB) is a place within, a place you can access - at any time, under any
kind of stress, anxiety, negative behavioral impulse, or depressed mood - to revitalize the desire
to create value and meaning in your life.

Your CVB is a repository of the most important things to and about you.

After a few weeks of daily deposits, the world around you will begin to remind you of the value
and meaning in your life. For example, when you see a sunset, it will not only seem beautiful in
and of itself, it will help you access your core value. The sunset will reinforce your deeper
motivations to improve, appreciate, connect, or protect.

There are eight “safe deposit boxes” in your CVB, each representing a way of creating value. Fill
each with statements, images, or icons of the various ways you personally create value.

Don’t worry that you’re stronger in some boxes than others. Most people concentrate on one or
two and are weaker in the others. It’s okay to specialize, but for maximum benefit, try to have
some small emotional investment in each box.

The following are instructions for filling in the individual safe deposit boxes of your CVB.

Box 1 - Basic Humanity

Developing a sense of basic humanity allows us to soar above the limitations and biases of
personal experience. The more in touch with basic humanity we are, the more humane we feel.

The content of safe deposit Box 1 of your CVB is an example of basic humanity drawn from
reality or from your imagination. Below is the example that works for me. I use it with most of
my clients.

Imagine that you’re driving by yourself late at night, with only one other car on the road.
Suddenly that car veers off the road and crashes into a tree. Two people are in the car, a mother
and a four-year-old child. The mother is unhurt, but she’s trapped in the front seat and will have
to wait for a rescue team to pry open the twisted metal and deployed air bags that have trapped
her. She cannot help her little girl, who climbs out the back window. Though not physically
harmed, the child, startled awake by the crash and unable to see her mother, feels helpless and
panicky. She shivers with fear. You are the only one who can help. What will you do?
 25

Of course, most people would call 911, reassure the mother that help is on the way, and comfort
the child.

Imagine that you’ve done the first two, and now you’re comforting the child. Close your eyes
(it’s easier to imagine with eyes closed) and feel yourself comforting this frightened child.
You’re hugging her, rocking her, whispering to her, encouraging her. You’re trying so hard to
comfort the frightened child that it takes a moment to realize how well it’s working. She’s
calming down, holding tightly onto you, her head on your chest. You feel her heart beating with
your heart. She feels soothed, peaceful, and good, due to you - your caring and your compassion.

I like this example because comforting a desperate, innocent child invokes our instincts to
improve, appreciate, connect, and protect. It’s already filled in Box 1 of your CVB. But you can
add something else that invokes your sense of basic humanity.

Box 2 - Meaning and Purpose

Meaning and purpose are not, strictly speaking, values. They result from being true to the most
important things to and about us; when true to our deeper values, we have a sense of meaning
and purpose. When we’re not, we don’t and are likely to fill the void with obsessions or
addictions or simply become lethargic with little motivation and vitality. I include meaning and
purpose here only to make them more accessible to consciousness. Otherwise, we tend to think
in terms of meaning and purpose only when we’ve lost them.

Your CVB uses two statements to reflect in miniature the meaning and purpose of your life. The
first statement to write down is the most important thing about you as a person. The second
statement describes the most important thing about your life in general. Think in terms of your
legacy to the world or how you would like to be remembered. This is what you would want on
your tombstone. If you were to write your eulogy in one or two sentences, this is what it would
say.

Box 3 - Attachment
Fill this box with the names of your loved ones. (You’re writing their names, but the actual
content of the box is the love you have for them.)

Box 4 – Spirituality
Fill in a symbol (a drawing or mark or word will do) of something that has spiritual significance
to you. It can be religious, natural, cosmic, or social, connecting you to something larger than the
self.

Box 5 – Nature
In this safe deposit box, name, draw, or describe a nature scene that makes you value, i.e.,
something that strikes you as beautiful. Note: in this and in the next box, concentrate on things
you’re likely to see in your environment. The gardens of Babylon and the Taj Mahal are fine, but
you need lots of local beauty for ongoing core value reinforcement.

Box 6 – Creativity
 26

Identify a piece of art, music, craft, furniture, architecture, or other human creation valuable to
you.

Box 7 – Community
Identify your sense of community connection, for example, school, work, church/temple/mosque,
or neighborhood, ethnic or racial identity, sports gatherings, book clubs, civic groups, etc.

Box 8 - Compassionate Acts

In safe deposit box 8, list three compassionate things you have done. These are times you helped
or comforted someone else, with no material gain to you. The content of the box is your
emotional state when you perform small gestures of compassion. Try to choose relatively small
gestures that can be part of your routine – helping someone struggling with packages, visiting the
sick, talking to someone who feels down.
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My Core Value Bank

Basic Humanity Meaning & Purpose Love Spiritual

The emotions I felt as The most important The people I love: My spiritual
I imagined rescuing thing about me as a connection:
and comforting a person:
desperate child:

The most important

thing about my life in
general:

Nature Creativity Community Compassion

Something beautiful Something beautiful My community Compassionate things

in nature: human made (art, connection: I have done:
music, architecture,
furniture, etc.): 1.

2.

3.

Make a visual Core Value Bank with personal pictures or drawings.

 28

Core Value Bank

Basic Humanity The most important People I love My spiritual connection
thing about me as a
person.

The most important

thing about my life

Nature Creativity Community My compassionate acts

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The Expansive Nature of Your Core Value Bank

Think of your CVB as constantly expanding. You can make it ever larger through daily
investments.

A primary purpose of making daily investments in your CVB is to relieve the stress that
accumulates from blame, denial, and avoidance.

The long-term goal is to create a habit of value-creation, so you will automatically seek to
increase the value of your experience, rather than lower it by devaluing yourself or others. A
strategy with unmatched potential for soaring above is to:

Add one new item to your CVB or enhance an item already in it, every day, for the rest of
your life.

If that seems like too much, just do it on the days that you eat. That’s not entirely a joke; you
want to think of core value work as replenishment, something that must be done every day, like
eating and sleeping. It doesn’t take a lot of time, only a few seconds really, yet the daily
repetition rewires the brain to think and act in terms of building value rather than devaluing.

The “nature” and “creative” boxes are the most accessible to new items, as they provide many
thousands of possibilities. The other boxes require mindfulness, appreciation, and practice of
what is already in the boxes, rather than addition of new items. Be more mindful of your basic
humanity connections, of the meaning and purpose of your life, of the love you have for
significant others. Appreciate your spiritual and community connections as well as the small
compassionate acts you perform.

Things I have done or could do to expand my basic humanity: (Examples: rescue a child,
rescue an animal, recognize that most people would do the same, let the light within me connect
to the light within others) Have done:

Will do:

Things I have done or could do affirm the most important things about me as a person:
(Examples: Be loving and compassionate to the people I love, be true to my deepest values, show
my loyalty, desire to help, creativity, optimism, etc.) Have done:

Will do:
 30

Things I have done or could do to affirm the most important thing about my life: (Example:
Tried my best to help people, be a loving parent, prevent acts of violence and cruelty) Have
done:

Will do:

Things I have done or could do to be more loving to the significant people in my life:
(Examples: light a candle, write a note, gently touch, give a flower, be the partner, parent, son, or
daughter I most want to be) Have done:

Will do:

Things I have done or could do to enhance my sense of spirituality: (Examples: go to church,

pray, see God in everything and everyone, meditate, express my soul, feel connected to
something larger than the self) Have done:

Will do:

Things I have done or could do to appreciate nature: (Examples: observe a sunset, trees,
flowers, go to the country, to the ocean, lake, woods, etc.) Have done:

Will do:

Things I have done or could do to appreciate human creativity: (Examples: create, art, music,
literature, architecture, listen to music, dance, go to a gallery, read) Have done:

Will do:

Things I have done or could do to enhance my community connection: (Examples: join a

church, school, parents', professional, or work-related association, become more involved in my
neighborhood) Have done:
 31

Will do:

Compassionate acts I have done or could do: (Examples: Visit the sick, help someone in need,
listen to someone) Have done:

Will do:

Things I have done or could do to improve a bad situation or my experience of it:

(Examples: try to communicate respectfully, enjoy music in traffic, try to solve a problem instead
of blaming it on someone) Have done:

Will do:

Things I have done or could do to appreciate: (Example: focus on the way the people close to
me enrich my life) Have done:

Will do:

Things I have done or could do to connect: (Examples: try to feel other people, try to
understand their perspectives) Have done:

Will do:

Things I have done or could do to protect people close to me: (Examples: look out for their
health and well being, be sure they are comfortable and safe) Have done:

Will do:
 32

Anything else I have done or will do to enhance my core value: Have done:

Will do:

Uses of Your Core Value Bank

The principal benefit of your CVB is retraining your brain to think and act in accordance with
your deeper values. But you can also use it to change any unwanted emotional state. Use it for:

• Insomnia
• Down moods
• Anxiety
• Stress
• Anger
• Resentment.

You can also use it modify a troublesome impulse to:

• Drink too much alcohol

• Use drugs
• Overeat
• Violence.
 33

4. Core Value Bank Deposits

Daily Core Value Bank Statement

Credits # of times

Helped someone

Respected someone

Recognized someone’s Core Value

Valued people I passed on the street (in my head)

Valued people I talked to on the phone (in my head)

Felt self-compassion (recognized my core hurt with motivation to

improve & heal)

Felt compassion for someone else (understood his/her perspective, with

sympathy for core hurts if it was negative)

Felt love for someone

Felt an intimate connection

Felt a communal connection

Felt a spiritual connection

Improved (by at least 5%) a troublesome situation or improved my

experience of it

If I worried about something bad that might happen, I thought of how to

improve it if it does happen
 34

Appreciated something about someone

Appreciated something in nature

Appreciated something made by a person – music, art architecture,

furniture, clothing, etc.

Acted according to my deepest values

Felt protective of someone, while respecting his/her autonomy

Renewed my purpose in life

Credit total

Debits

Devalued someone

Ignored someone

Was rude or disrespectful to someone

Allowed myself to worry without thinking of how to improve the things I

worried about

Overdraft Minus 30 credits

for each
Hurt someone

Subtotal of Debits and Overdrafts from Credit total

Statement Total; Subtract debits and overdrafts total from Credit

total

Core Value Bank Deposit Slip

I will now: # of
times
Help someone

Respect someone
 35

Recognize someone’s Core Value

Value someone (in my head)

Experience self-compassion (recognize my core hurt with motivation to improve &

heal)

Feel compassion for someone (understand his/her perspective, with sympathy for
core hurts if it was negative)

Feel love for someone

Feel an intimate connection

Feel a sense of community

Feel a spiritual connection

Improve (by at least 5%) a troublesome situation or improve my experience of it

If I am worried about something bad that might happen, I’ll decide how to improve
it if it does happen

Appreciate something about someone

Appreciate something in nature

Appreciate something made by a person – music, art, architecture, furniture,

clothing, etc.

Renew my purpose in life

Total credits deposited

 36

Lifetime Core Value Bank Statement

(I’m always working toward it)

Number of people I have helped ___

Children I have raised to responsible adults ___

Number of animals I have protected or watched over ___

Circle one for the following:

Amount of suffering in the world I have Some A lot Enormous amounts
decreased

Moments of happiness I have caused Some A lot Enormous amounts

Long-term Core Value Investments

• Volunteer work
• Family
• Community activism

Core Value Connection

Greater awareness of your core value automatically creates a stronger sense of connection with
other people. Just about everyone you see on the street would help and comfort that child in the
desert. When your basic humanity connects to that of others, you feel better and you make the
world a little better place.
 37

5. Build Core Value Narratives

If you feel stuck in life or like you’re making the same mistakes over and over, your personal
narrative is a likely culprit.

Although derived entirely from interpretations of past experience, personal narratives determine
present and future interpretations of experience, which, in turn, greatly influence behavior.

Sometimes we tell them to others, as a form of self-disclosure or to manage the impressions we

make. But the primary function of personal narratives is to make sense of our lives. The human
brain tries constantly to organize the chaos of data presented at any given moment. Personal
narratives are a short-hand way of imposing order on the chaos of experience.

Each narrative we construct stimulates a repertoire of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. While
we’re relatively aware of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, the narratives themselves are
mostly unconscious, based on implicit assumptions for interpreting the events of our lives.

Compare the types of narratives below and decide which is more likely to produce the kind of
life you would like to have.

Negative Personal Narratives

“I live a forlorn life, cold, empty, uncertain. I feel isolated, like no one cares.” (I can’t do
anything to make my life better.)

“People are out to get you. They never change. Why should they, they’re successful at making
my life miserable.” (I have to be bitter and aggressive to protect myself.)

In negative personal narratives, bad feelings, moods, and circumstances, seem permanent – living
is hardship or a battle or a joyless drive to get things done. Positive feelings, moods, and
circumstances are temporary and sometimes dangerous, in that they lead to greater vulnerability.

When negative narratives persist over time, they develop a support structure of highly reinforced
habits that are difficult to change. Any positive experience is seen as an anomaly or a brief
occurrence in the calm before the next storm. Once habituated, positive experience will not
change negative narratives. Only change in the narrative will alter the perceived value of the
experience.

Positive Personal Narratives

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“I live a blessed life; I’m healthy, able to grow, learn, and have enriched experiences. I’m
resilient and creative. (I know that, in general, I can improve my experience at any time.)
Negative feelings, moods, and circumstances are temporary, presenting opportunities for learning
and growth. Positive feelings, moods, and circumstances are consistent.

Relationship Narratives

In addition to personal narratives, we develop relationship stories that sometimes complement

and sometimes contradict personal narratives. (When they are contradictory, cognitive
dissonance occurs.) Regardless of whether they are consistent with personal narratives or
contradictory to them, relationship narratives seize control of most emotionally-charged
interactions and create dynamics in which both partners lose sight of what they want in their
reactions to each other.

Consistent Negative Personal and Relationship Narratives

“People are out to get you. They never change. Why should they, they’re successful at making
my life miserable.” (I have to be bitter and aggressive to protect myself.)"
"My partner is (variously) an alcoholic, personality-disordered, mentally ill, selfish, immoral,
deceitful, controlling, domineering, unfair, irrational, abusive, etc.” (There’s nothing I can do to
improve my relationship.) I feel powerless most of the time and that causes resentment, anger,
and contempt for my partner, and, of course, for myself for being with my partner.”

Contradictory Negative Personal and Relationship Narratives

“I am a compassionate, kind, loving person. But I’m not able to feel those things for my partner.
Because my partner is defective (alcoholic, personality-disordered, mentally ill, selfish, immoral,
deceitful, controlling, domineering, unfair, irrational, abusive, etc.), I’m unable to be my true
self, which is compassionate, kind, and loving.”

Positive Relationship Narrative

“My partner is essentially good-hearted. We can work together to improve our relationship. I feel
good about my partner, and, of course, about myself for being with my partner.”

Which relationship narrative is more likely to produce the kind of experience you would like to
have.

Core Value Narratives Exercises

List what you consider to be the three most important qualities about you as a person. (Example:
passionate, optimistic, compassionate, loyal)

1.
 39

2.

3.

List three things that you “stand for,” i.e., things that are important to you and worthy of your
time, energy, and sacrifice. (Example: fairness, hard work, integrity)

1.

2.

3.

List five things you appreciate about your life. (Example: health, caring people in my life,
material needs met, good friends, education, knowledge/wisdom, success)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Use the 11 items you listed above to construct a narrative about yourself. (Example: I’m
passionate, optimistic, compassionate, loyal, fair, a hard-worker, of high integrity. I’m grateful
for my health, the caring people in my life, my material security, my good friends, and my
education.)

If you adopt something like the above as your personal narrative, how might it change your
behavior and your experience?

Relationship Narratives

List the three most important assets your partner brings to your relationship. (Example: sensitive
to others, generous, cheerful)

1.

2.

3.
 40

List what you consider to be the three most important qualities about you as a husband or wife.
(Example: loving, respectful, compassionate)

1.

2.

3.

List three ways you would like to improve as a husband or wife. (Example: be more engaged,
more positive, and more aware of the good moments)

1.

2.

3.

List the five things you most appreciate about your relationship. (Example: companionship, fun,
sensuality, vitality, security)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Construct a narrative about your relationship using the 14 items you listed above. (Example: My
relationship brings me fun, sensuality, vitality, security, and companionship. My partner is
sensitive, generous, and cheerful, who deserves to have me work hard to be loving, respectful,
and compassionate. My relationship is important enough for me to make the effort to be more
engaged, positive, and appreciative of the good moments.)
 41

Celebration of Core Value

Look for the light.

Even when the road through life, love, work, and family is at its darkest, we triumph by looking
for the light.

No matter how you are treated by the rest of the world, the light of your core value – the value
and goodness you were born with – burns within you.

Core value is your humanity, your capacity to feel compassion for yourself as you feel it for
others. It is the deepest motivation to heal, correct, improve, repair, renew, appreciate, connect,
grow, build, and rebuild.

Core value is so important to the survival of our species that it is absolutely indestructible. The
world can cause you expense and inconvenience, it can harm your body but can never diminish
your core value.

Regardless of whether the people around you can be true to their core value, you can and must be
true to yours. Please, take a moment to say these words aloud, and rejoice in hearing your voice
utter them:

“I am worthy of respect, value, and compassion, whether or not I get them from
others. If I don’t get them from others, it is necessary to feel more worthy, not
less. I hereby resolve to sympathize with my hurt by healing and improving it. I
affirm my own deep value as a unique person (a child of God). I respect and value
myself. I have compassion for the hurt of others. I trust myself to act in my best
interests and in the best interests of loved ones.”

Celebrate your core value. Let your emotions and behavior be guided by it. Use it to solve the
important problems of your life. Use it to fully experience joy.